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From: "dshepx" <dshep@...>
Date: 2004-12-13 06:30:56 #
Subject: Re: Changes in the Shavian Alphabet

Toggle Shavian
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Hugh Birkenhead" wrote:


> Surely you should make 'yea' a deep character also, in the name of
> consistency? This would also mean you would have to adjust 'yew'
> to be a deep character - or surely, make it a short one, so that it
> is in line with all the other vowel symbols?


In lieu of major changes perhaps it could just float downwards until
it became a deep letter.


> Sure, there are some things I think are silly about Shavian - my
> only major gripe is the 'err'/'air' reversal which is clearly an
> error and can easily be spotted by linguistic novices and experts
> alike.


They easily spot the ha/hung transposition as well. Why does the one
reversal upset you but not the other?


> Despite this glitch I do not believe it serious enough to warrant
> making a parallel alphabet to Shavian with only two letters altered.


Four letters, perhaps five.


> As for the 'hung'/'haha' dispute, I simply do not accept there was
> any error made at all.


Have you considered membership in the Flat Earth Society?


> The solution to this is obvious, in my mind: if one finds Shavian's
> inconsistencies too much to work with, there is already an
> alternative: it's called Quikscript.


It is a pretty good alternative for writing by hand, quicker and
easier. ShawScript looks better though, I think.


> dshep writes:
>
> > no amount of diversion can alter the fundamental and
> > obvious fact that the sound represented by the letter
> > 'h' is unvoiced, that by 'ng' is voiced, and there is no
> > good reason why they should be displayed incorrectly.
> > Is there? Why be deliberately wrong? Makes no sense.

And will never.....

dshep

From: "dshepx" <dshep@...>
Date: 2004-12-13 08:39:54 #
Subject: Re: tao te ching/mitchell/33

Toggle Shavian
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetts wrote:


> You have come up with one way to change the sign symbol
> correspondences. Just assigning to h and write hotel as Notel.


The only way I know how, as I do not understand this mapping
business. It definitely looks odd if allowed to remain in keyboard
Shavian. I thought that if I went ahead and did it this way and ask
that everyone then copy it to a word-processing application and
transform it to a Shavian font it would demonstrate that it is not
strange at all to see the aitches rising and the ings falling, just
like they did in the old loopy handwriting style of yesteryear —
and the sky would not fall. I don't think Read would have
deliberately flaunted this convention, why would he? Besides,
the 's' was not reversed, and the 't' is actually one form of the
old Runic t.

Yes, there is the 'edh', but that was corrected in QuickScript and I
suspect someone questioned him about that, because the letters
he chose to replace the 'th'-pair are no easier to write than the
originals, they only remove the wonderment of deliberate reversal.

And as for the 'v' letter, that is actually an older 's', the one used
in initial and medial positions to about the 1800s. Look at the word
Constitution as it is written on the original "Constitution of the
United States", or any old document. Strange that he didn't in fact
use that letter for 's' as it would then have a historical
connection, besides being easy to write.

But, there is his inverted v for the 'ooze' letter, the same sign
that the IPA uses for 'up', that definitely looks deliberate. Those
'Petty' linguists would certainly question that, were ShawScript
to be introduced in the schools. But again, he attempted to soften
that by rounding the corners in QuickScrip and devised an altered
yew, so that too might have been called to his attention. Why then
not correct the 'ng'? Instead he used the downward loop for 'n',
sometimes shown as upward also, which does permit easier joining
to vowels,and I think that was his principal goal, to devise letters
that permit a quickly formed shorthand, which is after all what
Shaw used.



Perhaps he arrived at that particular choice as he had that tall
'yea' left over and he wanted that particular 'yew' combination,
who knows?


dshep

From: Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@...>
Date: 2004-12-13 14:04:38 #
Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] Re: About time!

Toggle Shavian
Of course. It's a neccessity when you have problems in your brain that
prevent you from always remembering the word that you want.

--Crazy Star

--- dshepx <dshep@...> wrote:

>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Star Raven wrote:
>
>
> > It is people in my family who are responsible for the
> > Chambers dictionary... small world, eh?
> >
> > -- Star
>
>
>
> I love dictionaries. I hope your family connections have fostered
> a similar affection in you.
>
> dshep
>
>
>
>
>


====http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad

Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!



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From: carl easton <shavintel16@...>
Date: 2004-12-13 16:20:40 #
Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] A new topic at shavian.org (Compund Letters)

Toggle Shavian
Hi Paul,

I looked at your response. I always use "Yew" as "yea" and "ooze". And I was right when I said "Ian" was the most confusing compound. How did I do in deciphering the Rhotic letters?

best of regards,

Carl
paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...> wrote:

Hi Carl

I responded to your new article in the Ikon board at
www.shavian.org.about how to use all the compound Shavian letters.
I am in Calgary visiting relatives, so it took me a while to get
back to you.
Remember, I am responding in terms of an American English
pronunciation.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. Let me know if you have any questions?

_______________________attached___________________


--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, carl easton <shavintel16@y...>
wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I just barely posted a new article in the Ikon board at
www.shavian.org. It is entitled how to use all the compound Shavian
letters. I would like to hear your responds to it.
>
> thanks,
>
> best of regards,
>
> Carl
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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From: carl easton <shavintel16@...>
Date: 2004-12-13 19:32:33 #
Subject: A mistake at www.omniglot.com

Toggle Shavian
There is a mistake in the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on the Shavian site, at www.omniglot.com

It should read:

Yl hVman bIiNz R bPn frI n Ikwal in dignitI n rFts. HE R endQd wiH rIzan n konSans n SUd Akt tawPdz wan anUHD in a spCit v bruHDhUd.

best of regards,

Carl


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From: "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@...>
Date: 2004-12-13 23:41:45 #
Subject: RE: [shawalphabet] Re: Changes in the Shavian Alphabet

Toggle Shavian
Dshepx wrote:

> > Surely you should make 'yea' a deep character also, in the name of
> > consistency? This would also mean you would have to adjust 'yew'
> > to be a deep character - or surely, make it a short one, so that it
> > is in line with all the other vowel symbols?
>
>
> In lieu of major changes perhaps it could just float downwards until
> it became a deep letter.
>
>
> > Sure, there are some things I think are silly about Shavian - my
> > only major gripe is the 'err'/'air' reversal which is clearly an
> > error and can easily be spotted by linguistic novices and experts
> > alike.
>
>
> They easily spot the ha/hung transposition as well. Why does the one
> reversal upset you but not the other?
>
>
> > Despite this glitch I do not believe it serious enough to warrant
> > making a parallel alphabet to Shavian with only two letters altered.
>
>
> Four letters, perhaps five.
>
>
> > As for the 'hung'/'haha' dispute, I simply do not accept there was
> > any error made at all.
>
>
> Have you considered membership in the Flat Earth Society?


No thanks. I take it you're their recruiting officer...

Better put the kettle on before reading further.

The status of 'err' and 'air' as errors is INDISPUTABLE, being a visible
mismatch of glyphs; you only have to break the letters in half (as they are
compounds) to tell. 'Err' is two 'EGG' letters joined together suffixed by
'roll', whereas 'air' is the same but with two 'ADO' letters. Clearly it was
intended that dualling of 'egg' and 'ado' should signify increased vowel
length - 'err' in British English is like a lengthened 'up' sound (the
rhoticism is observed in some British dialects and obviously in most
American ones), while 'air' is a lengthened 'egg' sound.

Kingsley Read had a perfect opportunity to correct previous mistakes in
Quikscript, which he devised several years after Shavian was made available.
Surely, if he wished to keep many of the same basic letter shapes as before,
he would have taken his chance to correct errors? With 'err' and 'air', he
did - firstly he removed compound letters with any indications of vowel
length entirely (notice a lack of distinct 'err' and 'air' characters), but
more importantly, he made it possible to use the letters 'et' and 'utter'
(equivalent to Shavian 'egg' and 'ado') with following 'roe' (equivalent to
'roll') to signify the sounds of 'air' and 'err' respectively.

Now you put forward that 'hung' and 'ha-ha' is an indisputable error, just
as in the above case. This assertion cannot be proven in the slightest.

- Firstly, and most obviously, there is no clear mismatch of glyphs. All we
have are two characters, unique, not derived from others. We have nothing to
compare them against in the context of the alphabet.

- Secondly, we notice that the two characters are NOT phonetically related
to each other as with all other pairs in the 'tall'/'deep' categories; it is
safe to assume that their forms bear resemblance to one another merely for
symmetry and convenience. Trying to apply the logic of the other tall/deep
pairs to these two characters is pointless seeing as they are so set apart.
The ONLY argument suggesting an erroneous switch is that 'hung' is tall yet
voiced, but 'haha' is deep yet unvoiced; seeing as these characters are
clearly unrelated leftovers given arbitrary letterform assignments, what
makes anyone think Read would have thought to apply a tall=unvoiced and
deep=voiced rule?

- Thirdly, as I mentioned already, if an error was so clearly made with
'hung' and 'haha', then an equally serious error was also made with the tall
YET VOICED 'yea', and its related compound vowel 'yew' (which is a vowel so
surely should be short like all the rest). Even if you flip hung and haha
round, you are still left with this one 'bad egg' in the tall category.
Obviously, 'woe' and 'yea' weren't accidentally flipped, because both are
voiced sounds. So what error could possibly have been made HERE? Just
perhaps, and this is just an off-the-wall suggestion, could yea and woe have
been put together with one as tall and the other as deep merely for reasons
of symmetry and convenience?

- Fourthly, look at Androcles, the only literary publication ever produced
in Shavian. This book contains the only existing technical documentation for
Shavian that was written by Shavian's creators themselves, not one of us
lowly serfs; these are, in case you have trouble finding them: the Public
Trustee's foreword, James Pitman's introduction, Peter MacCarthy's notes on
spelling, the suggestions for writing by Kingsley himself, and of course the
reading key. In ANY of these sections, do you find ANY tag, note, direction,
rule or other such marking defining talls as unvoiced and deeps as voiced?
To save you time: nope. Not a sausage. Just to clarify this one more time:
*there is NO rule that talls are unvoiced and deeps are voiced*.

- And finally, as has been mentioned MANY times apparently without being
read once, THE SUPPOSED ERROR WAS NOT CORRECTED IN QUIKSCRIPT. Quikscript
letter 'ing' is a dead ringer for Shavian letter 'hung'. Funny that. If Read
felt strongly enough to change so many things, such as correcting 'air' and
'err', making 'fee'/'vow' look like 'thigh'/'they', and altering a great
many of the other letterforms including 'haha', why did he not seize this
perfect opportunity to restore 'hung' to be the deep, downward curling
letter he had actually designed it to be in Shavian? Answer: because the
letter hung WAS as he actually designed it to be in Shavian.

>
> > The solution to this is obvious, in my mind: if one finds Shavian's
> > inconsistencies too much to work with, there is already an
> > alternative: it's called Quikscript.
>
>
> It is a pretty good alternative for writing by hand, quicker and
> easier. ShawScript looks better though, I think.

Then write in Shawscript. Qut don't claim to write in Shawscript qut
actually qe writing 'hung' where you should qe writing 'haha', therefore not
using qonafide Shawscript at all. Imagine how silly and qewildering to
others it would qe to qegin such a one-man revolution in the conventional
alphaqet.

> > dshep writes:
> >
> > > no amount of diversion can alter the fundamental and
> > > obvious fact that the sound represented by the letter
> > > 'h' is unvoiced, that by 'ng' is voiced, and there is no
> > > good reason why they should be displayed incorrectly.
> > > Is there? Why be deliberately wrong? Makes no sense.
>
> And will never.....

I don't doubt that it makes no sense to those who believe almost religiously
that an error was in fact made. I think you're alone on that one.

> dshep

Hugh B

From: stbetta@...
Date: 2004-12-14 00:12:20 #
Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] A mistake at www.omniglot.com

Toggle Shavian
The p for P error:

Yl hVman bIiNz R bPn frI n Ikwal in dignitI n rFts. HE R endQd wiH rIzan n
konSans n SUd Akt tawPdz wan anUHD in a spCit v bruHDhUd.

This is the kind of error [p for P] [i for I] that might be avoided with a
more transparent keyboard mapping.

[Unifon] xl hUmcn bEiNz or bxrn frE and Ekwcl in dignctE and rItz. [Yr]
Yl hVman bIiNz R bPn [alt. bYrn] frI n Ikwal in dignitI n rFts.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit
of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
There is a mistake in the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, on the Shavian site, at http://www.omniglot.com/

It should read:

Yl hVman bIiNz R bPn frI n Ikwal in dignitI n rFts. HE R endQd wiH rIzan n
konSans n SUd Akt tawPdz wan anUHD in a spCit v bruHDhUd.

best of regards,

Carl

From: Jeff Blakeslee <blakesleej@...>
Date: 2004-12-14 07:02:18 #
Subject: Androcles word list

Toggle Shavian
I created a list of all of the words occurring in
"Androcles and the Lion" and their transliterations as
they appear in the Penguin paperback. Please let me
know if you see any errors or missed items.

I removed namer dots from words that can occur as
common nouns (e.g. centurion, emperor). Use of the
apostrophe is inconsistent in the Roman text; here I
attempted to write in the Roman apostrophes where they
are dropped in the book. Hyphenated words are
considered one word in the list.

Regards,
Jeff

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From: "paul vandenbrink" <pvandenbrink@...>
Date: 2004-12-14 08:39:38 #
Subject: Re: Changes in the Shavian Alphabet

Toggle Shavian
Hi D'shep
You are correct hw is the unvoiced equivalent of the voiced
Shaw "Woe" letter, and in a perfect world it would be assigned to
the Tall Yea letter. I notice the hw sound mostly in compound
sounds. (i.e. quiet, quick, quite, swipe) Maybe in whoosh, whew and
whirl, too.
Regaards, Paul V.


--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "dshepx" <dshep@g...> wrote:
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetts wrote:
>
>
>
> > The last two tall characters are not unvoiced.
> > The last deep characters is not voiced.
>
>
> (in the reading key, I presume you mean)
>
>
> That's the point I'm trying to make, 'y' and 'ng' are not
> unvoiced, 'h' is; ergo, they are in the wrong place.
>
>
> > The only thing that can be changed is the sound
> > assignment.
>
>
> As I have suggested. Simply swap the ha/hung
> keywords. What could be simpler?
>
>
> The 'yea'-sign could be used for 'hw' and something else
> found for the palatal approximant, perhaps the 'Ian' letter
> that no one likes.
>
>
> Why is this an insurmountable difficulty?
>
>
> dshep
>
>
>
> dshep

From: "paul vandenbrink" <pvandenbrink@...>
Date: 2004-12-14 08:49:11 #
Subject: Re: A new topic at shavian.org (Compund Letters)

Toggle Shavian
Hi Carl

You did very well at deciphering the Rhotic letters. I am still
considering "Ash" + "Array" -> "Air"
Sounds like Long John Silver in Treasure Island
Arr, Matey {What does Arr mean in this context?}
Paul V.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, carl easton <shavintel16@y...>
wrote:
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> I looked at your response. I always use "Yew" as "yea"
and "ooze". And I was right when I said "Ian" was the most
confusing compound. How did I do in deciphering the Rhotic letters?
>
> best of regards,
>
> Carl
> paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>
> Hi Carl
>
> I responded to your new article in the Ikon board at
> www.shavian.org.about how to use all the compound Shavian letters.
> I am in Calgary visiting relatives, so it took me a while to get
> back to you.
> Remember, I am responding in terms of an American English
> pronunciation.
>
> Regards, Paul V.
>
> P.S. Let me know if you have any questions?
>
> _______________________attached___________________
>
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, carl easton
<shavintel16@y...>
> wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I just barely posted a new article in the Ikon board at
> www.shavian.org. It is entitled how to use all the compound
Shavian
> letters. I would like to hear your responds to it.
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > best of regards,
> >
> > Carl
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
Learn
> more.
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups SponsorADVERTISEMENT
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shawalphabet/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> shawalphabet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
>
>
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